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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

West Texas Intermediate crude for February delivery lost 29 cents to $53.77 on the New York Merc, while Brent for February lost eight cents to $56.14 (all figures in this para U.S.). Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $15.95 to WTI ($37.82), unchanged. Natural gas for February lost 13 cents to $3.80. The TSX energy index lost a fraction to close at 222.44.

Cheerleaders of the B.C. LNG (liquefied natural gas) industry are ending a bruising year on an optimistic note. Critics had all but called time of death on the industry in February, when the provincial oil and gas ministry held a monthly drilling rights auction that, for the first time on record, came up empty. Awkwardly enough, the auction was held almost four years to the day after the B.C. government first began hyping its planned "development of a brand-new LNG sector," as announced amid much fanfare on Feb. 3, 2012. In the years since then, oil prices have crashed, the global LNG market has developed a supply glut, and several investment decisions on B.C. LNG proposals have been shelved or postponed indefinitely. The B.C. government's website lists 20 LNG export projects that were "in various stages of development" as of Sept. 21. Of those, just one has been authorized by its backers to proceed: the Woodfibre LNG project near Squamish. Its authorization arrived last month. Although the $1.6-billion project is relatively small, the excitement was enough to prompt B.C. Premier Christy Clark to don a hard hat at a press conference while declaring herself "just delighted ... that LNG in British Columbia is finally becoming a reality."

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